"When noise is the default, silence is what catches attention." - Amy Dentata

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Critical Switch: FFVII and Jazz Standards

On Jazz
Standards

Joe Pass
was a Sicillian-American Jazz guitarist who lived from 1929 to 1994,
he is one of the greatest Jazz guitarists of all time, often cited
along with Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, and George Benson. He
was particularly a master of solo performance, capable of deftly
moving between melody and supporting harmony, all with a massive
improvisational flair. He could move between chords whose names I can
barely say and in the next bar be blazing across a lick with deftly
incorporated passing tones. This was on top of being an incredibly
capable band leader, and an extraordinarily skilled accompanist.

Joe played
jazz standards. Rock can have problems with cover tunes, at least
from the 70's-80's and onward. For whatever reason, songs are usually
seen as inseparable from the people who first wrote and performed
them, from the contexts in which they were first created. Jazz
doesn't do that. Jazz performers, generally speaking, tend to take a
song and put their spin on it, and sometimes even put multiple
different spins on it, like Joe Pass did with the song “Summertime,”
first written by George Gershwin for the musical Porgy and Bess.
Three different versions of “Summertime” that Joe Pass recorded
are playing under this episode.

There's
been a lot of argument over whether Final Fantasy VII
should even be remade. If the original is as great as we say it is,
shouldn't it stay the way it is? I'm bothered by this line of
thinking for a number of reasons, some sentimental, others outright
selfish, but one point became burningly clear as I realized it:

If
Final Fantasy VII had
already been remade, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Now
that's a fairly tautological statement, but the evidence backs it up.
I can think of no such dedicated originalists concerning, for
example, Final Fantasy IV,
which has been remade countless different times. Now, you could
easily play the original version on the SNES and that's still a great
game, but you also now have the choice of playing the PSP remake and
the DS remake, the former a more traditional iteration with updated
sprite graphics and more or less similar mechanics, (itself a port of
a GBA remake) the latter a fairly major overhaul made in low poly 3D,
adding voice acting, and redefining character combat functionality.
Both of them are really great takes on the game. Both of them are
really fun, both of them have the same great music and adventurous
story. In my mind there is absolutely no reason not to play one of
those versions over the original SNES version. And come to think of
it, if you wanted to play the original game, would you play the US
version with the butchered translation and altered mechanics, or
would you play a fan translation patch of the Japanese version? That
US version may be an inexcusably bad port by modern standards, but it
was also the version that some people grew up playing, and probably
the version some still play today.

Tales of
Phantasia: now granted, nearly
none of these versions are available legally in the US, but indulge
me. The original version of the game on the SNES is by no means a bad
game, but the Playstation version builds on it in every conceivable
way, iterating on the combat system to more resemble the game's
recent sequel on the Playstation, and adding the series legendary
“skits” to the equation, adding lots of fun interactions between
the game's lovable cast of characters. You could also consider Tales
of Phantasia X for the PSP,
which has all of the PS1 version additions and a fully voice acted
cast.

Dragon
Quest is a particularly blatant
example: no one who likes people would recommend playing the original
NES version of Dragon Quest
when the Super Nintendo version exists that cut the grind in half,
simplifies the environment interactions, and puts a fresh coat of
paint on the graphics.

Chrono
Trigger: the DS version adds
stylus controls for the menu if that's your thing, a minimap, all the
anime cutscenes from the PS1 version without any of the load times,
and redoes the original translation. It is almost without question
the definitive version of the game.

The
primary difference, the only difference really, between any of those
games and Final Fantasy VII
is that those games were iterated upon consistently from their
original release till present day. And while we can have reasonable
discussions over which versions are we like better for what
particular reasons, there's no real question as to whether the
various iterations are legitimate interpretations. Final
Fantasy IV, Tales of Phantasia,
most of the Dragon Quest games
are all jazz standards. Each version has it's own flavor, and
thankfully, all those flavors are pretty solid!

Lemme
let you in on a little secret, cuz a lot of people have forgotten
this: Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX were all
scheduled to be remade . . . for the PS2. Gamespot reported
this in 2001. Quote:

Square
has announced that it will release the remakes of Final Fantasy VII,
VIII, and IX for the PlayStation 2 in individual packages. Each will
be in DVD-ROM format, with graphical and audio enhancements.
Additionally, special features will be included in the remake discs.
No release information has been disclosed on the three Final Fantasy
remakes at this time.

Then,
a little movie called The Spirits Within happened,Squaresoft had a major corporate restructuring, they merged with
Enix to become Square-Enix and the project never materialized.

A
tech demo was even made that rendered Final Fantasy VIII's
dance sequence in real time. With FFVIII being
my personal favorite, I go back and watch that every once in a while
and just go “Man, I wish I could play this
version.” I mean yeah even it looks dated now, especially
considering it's a real-time tech demo vs. the original games
lovingly crafted FMVs, the character models are especially pale, but
y'know what also looks dated? Every part of Final Fantasy
VIII that isn't an FMV.

I
guess the real question is, if all these games get remade and people
are cool with it because those versions are awesome, why all the
skepticism now about this game? Is it because this game is better? I
mean sure, I like it better than pretty much any of the games I
listed above and I'm also doing edits to my book about
it, but Final Fantasy VII
is also by no means perfect. The original translation has two ableist
slurs and has Barrett talking like a Mr. T parody, and even the
Japanese version has FFVII's
infamously loosely structured endgame bit with the Huge Materia that
we collect for . . . some reason or the other? Hell, FFVII
is great, I'd still call it one of The Greatest
but the game's Magic Defense stat doesn't even function properly,
partially lending to the absurd cost:damage ratio for using magic all
across the game. A remake would be a great chance to fix some of that
stuff and maybe tweak the balance of high-level play as well.

And
that's if Square takes the traditionalist route and remakes it as a
traditional JRPG. I'd be perfectly fine with that, ecstatic even, but
the more I think about it, the more I came to agree with my friend
James Hearn that, like listening to Joe Pass' very different versions
of “Summertime”, I'd love to play a version of Final
Fantasy VII that, at least on an
interfacial level, changed absolutely everything.

As
noted by my friend Devon Carter in an episode a few weeks ago,
Hiroyuki Ito, who designed the battle system for Final
Fantasy VII, even said that when
he first designed the Auto-Time Battle system for Final
Fantasy IV, which Final
Fantasy VII iterates upon, he
saw it more as a means of abstractly presenting the fights in a way
that was achievable with the technology at the time, and also said he
thought that, as the series got older and tech got more advanced, how
the battle work would change, and it has. The old 3-to-a-line battles
had their own style and their own elegance, but Square shouldn't
necessarily feel chained to them.

I
understand preserving FFVII
in it's original format, and I understand why for historical reasons
that that is important, and I would never argue that the original
game isn't worth remembering or caring about even with the remake on
the way. What I will argue is that some of the stalwart dedication to
preserving the original game instead of
an effort to preserve Final Fantasy VII
that also lets it evolve like a jazz standard comes from a dedication
to the original game that is frankly silly given that the original
game likely can, and arguably should be altered.

And
if worst comes to worstand FFVII
turns into some F2P MMO with all the music replaced by Sunn 0))),
what a shame it would be, given that I can still play the original
version or PC version, both of which now have excellent fan
translations that address the major concern of preserving FFVII in
the west.

I've
rambled about but my primary point is this: FFVII
should be remade. It should've already happened once, and ten or
twenty years from now, it should happen again. Not necessarily
because each version will always be better than the last, but,
hopefully, because each of them will be interesting,
and serve to give us multiple ways of looking at and thinking about
one of gaming's grandest artistic achievement.

I
will be returning next week, as promised, with an episode (or two
given how these scripts are looking) about game design as a conduit
to drama. From Seattle, Washington, I'm Austin C. Howe.